Minus the difference in language...

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...Korean middle-school-age boys are exactly the same as American boys. I know this without having met any of my students.

Waiting to cross the road in Gimpo, there were these two boys kicking a soccer ball back and forth. One of them stood in the road and said "pass, pass." The other one passed, and he purposely stood out of the way so the ball would roll into the intersection.

They got the ball back, and when we were crossing the road he did it again. That time, an older Korean guy bounced the ball back to him - he had the Asian version of the "you dernned kids get off my lawn" - face. The boys just laughed. I'm sure I'll have plenty more stories like that come Monday night.

So training is done. It was intense. I passed. Yay. Anyway, now I'm in Gimpo:
















where I'll be living and working for the next year. My apartment is a small studio (pictures to come later) in the downtown area, complete with bathroom, kitchenette, A/C, a phone, a small TV and a washing machine.






























This is the view out my window. See the building in the background? The top row of windows is CDI Gimpo. Pretty sweet commute, if you ask me.

Traditional Korean music is terrifying. Especially if you aren't expecting it. It sounds like a public execution in some kind of supernatural movie, with the low drums and the odd instruments. Women in big frilly dresses dance to it, waving fans and smiling, and it doesn't seem to fit. At least to me. Maybe you have to get used to it.

Pictures of my last couple days in Seoul:


A view of Bakhansan National Park, which is just north of the city. How many cities are there that actually boarder National Parks?


Achasan, which is in the same district as the CDI building. Yes. The mountain is in a district in Seoul. There is more city behind it. It's not the only mountain in the metropolitan area (think Holyrood in Edinburgh). Maybe that's why this place is so BIG.

My last night in Seoul, I went to another hole-in-the-wall Korean restaurant with picture menus and people whose English is worse than my Korean. One of the little side dishes looked like this:



and I thought, hmm, some kind of seaweed or other exotic vegetable. Until I picked it up. Why? Because up close, it looks like this:



and so I didn't eat it.

Anyway, the other teachers at CDI Gimpo seem nice. It's ironic that the director of a franchise of a huge corporate institute for learning English would speak the language so badly, but it's true. He's friendly, but his English is TERRIBLE. I tried to hide how surprised I was when he told me he was the director.

My first class is Monday. Until then, I leave you with this fun cultural fact:

Koreans do not bag their own groceries. If they have a basket, they don't even take their groceries out. The cashiers do everything. I learned this when the cashier laughed at me.

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Comments

[Kristen]

blah
I wouldn't have eaten that either!!

[Paolo]

That's anchovy.
That's pickled anchovy. You don't have anchovy pizzas in the states? --Paolo the Aye-talian